Things have calmed considerably at home, but Carlisle is hesitating to leave Milliways so immediately after his shift.

Presently he is outside, debating going back in to retrieve a cigarette.

Carlisle has been keeping as much of an eye on Bella as he can given the fact that she doesn't precisely fall in his rotation at the moment, but it serves the double purpose of making sure that Edward doesn't skip too much school in order to stay with her. He uses the justification of making sure he retrieves her assignments in order to motivate ( Read more... )

Edward and Carlisle in the hospital waiting room, Carlisle desperately trying to piece together how to have Edward focus on anything else besides his mental self-flagellation.

Carlisle doesn't succeed. He didn't expect to.

But the cell phone in his pocket buzzes and Carlisle reaches for it automatically, flipping it open.

"Esme."

Carlisle is slowing Edward down and they both realize it so it remains unspoken.

As they travel, Carlisle keeps up with the rest of his family as best as he can and as much as is safe.

From: 360-227-4753 (Carlisle)
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Status?
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Carlisle has been running for days. If he keeps it up much longer he'll end up in Portugal.

Judging by the patrons of the bar where Carlisle just entered?

He's run a lot farther than that.

Things have been settling down at chez Cullen. Enough that Carlisle actually bothers with the television set.

He's laughing at the History Channel.

Work is a refuge for Carlisle as much as it is a livelihood for his family, their veneer of normalcy ( Read more... )

A couple of days have passed since the incident in Milliways. Rosalie is furious at the recklessness of everyone involved, while Emmett is more aggravated that he wasn't called upon to help, though voicing that opinion gets him smacked in the back of the head by Esme ( Read more... )

It's Saturday, a random weekend in Forks, and Carlisle is coming home from a shift at the hospital. He hears Esme in the house, but not Edward. Or Alice and Jasper.

Maybe they're in Milliways.

It's been over forty years. Over forty years when the door to the end of the universe finally opened again, and Carlisle Cullen, stregone of Volterra, reappears in Milliways.

He tries to look relieved to be there.

It comes across as a flinch.